Lessons From My Dogs

Happy New Year!

I’ll be ringing in the new year home, with my husband and the three dogs. Perfect way, in my opinion, to ring in the new year. While there are lots of people posting about their new year resolutions I wanted to take a minute and look back over this last year. Sometimes I don’t feel I’ve accomplished enough. I’m not a good enough trainer. I’m not progressing fast enough. I left a training session frustrated today. Part of the frustration is due to me trying to figure out my training philosophy – where my lines are. There has been a lot on Facebook these last two days about training methodologies and labels — pure positive, balanced, force-free, “Have to” vs “Want to” — and I’ll be honest I haven’t read much of it, but what I do know is I have to figure out what is right for me and my dogs, and I’m having some difficulty with that. Hopefully I’ll find more answers in the new year. For the moment I’m just glad to be sitting here at home with the pups.

I know I want to stop comparing myself to other people. I want to be able to appreciate and celebrate their accomplishments, while not feeling like I’m not keeping up. I need to remind myself that that we don’t travel for trials, and yet the Labrador and I earned five new agility titles this year! Considering I was someone who knew nothing about competition until the Labrador came into my life four years ago, that’s not too bad.

The Beagle earned her Novice Trick Dog title this year! This was a lot of fun. She loved getting to train! And the Golden earned two legs of his Rally Novice title. I should probably stop telling this story, but the second leg when the judge told me I qualified I replied with, “Really? Are you sure?” Probably not the best thing to blurt out to the judge!!

We’ve done a lot this year. Maybe not by some people’s standards, but I’ll take it. I’ve learned a lot this year. Played a lot of games with my dogs. And as frustrated as I may get I am enjoying the journey. What more can I ask for?